Plame Gossip - Rove Watch

It's too early still to call it officially, but since apparently there's been no announcement of a Fitzgerald press conference yet, I wouldn't be holding my breath. It looks like public action is increasingly unlikely today.

Update: Well, sort of. Steve Clemons has a post naming Armitage as the first leaker(disregard all the Inman crap at the top), and that from day one he has testified three times before the grand jury and been "a completely straight shooter." (That fits with other information, reporting, and reasoned speculation. Set it as a probable guess.)

Also according to Clemons, although I would give this a little less creedence, Fitzgerald is no longer interested in the "outing" of Plame but in the coverup, and that it is Armitage, more than anything else, that has put Rove in major risk of indictment.

Hmmm.... So, in this storyline, Armitage outs Plame, recognizes his mistake, tells Colin Powell everything, then tells Fitzgerald everything, and then Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and the rest try to cover up...... what?

Do you think Rove/Libby risked perjury well into the investigation to cover for Armitage who "isn't one of them" and was cooperating? Was the coverup simply designed to hide the fact that they tried to hatchett Wilson's credibility? Hardly seems worth the risk. Why the coverup then?

We're missing some key element here.

(And, as for the Leopold "controversy," I still hold the opinion that if the story is/was wrong, he was set up. I've heard his interview, read the stuff from Mark Ash, Larry Johnson, etc, I believe he honestly reported what he was told.)

(Also, just as a reminder, I went back through some of my old Plame Gossip pieces around the Libby indictment and the similarities in the coverage are comical. A ton of speculation, reporting, and defense lawyer spinning(lying) having Cheney, Rove, Hadley, Hannah and others indicted or free. Weeks of "Fitzgerald's indictments could be imminent." Tea leaf reading that was just ridiculous. And almost all of it turned out to be pretty dicey reporting.

So, just a reminder that this is the Plame Gossip section of the blog. It's interesting, it's fun, but nothing is guaranteed true until we hold Fitzgerald's indictments in our collective electronic hands. - Mike)